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Tuesday, April 30, 2013

If you listened to this weeks podcast you'll know that I watched Noobz. I went back and forth thinking about doing a write up of the movie for a few days considering I talked a little about it on the podcast. As you can see here I decided to do a little write up anyway.

Noobz is about a group of friends who decide to go to LA to compete in a Gears of War championship called Cyber Bowl, and gamer hijinks ensues. The flick stars Blake Freeman, who also co-wrote and directed Noobz, and Jason Mewes (Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back). There are a few fun cameos from different people in the movie and gaming world such as Adam Sessler, or my personal favorite cameo Casper Van Dien (Starship Troopers).

It's an entertaining flick that has it's moments. The references to real people in the gaming world hysterical, to get some of them you either need to know your gaming history, or just watch The King of Kong. Actually if you haven't seen Noobz yet, I highly suggest that you see The King of Kong first, you'll get that much more out of the flick. I know if I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't have gotten all the references, and satire.

Honestly the best character in the flick is played by Jason Mewes. He takes the role, and he makes it his own. If you listen to the Jay and Silent Bob get old podcast, you get to know more about how Jason is, and he practically plays it as if he's just playing himself. As for the rest of the character, in my opinion they were okay.

Overall I give Noobz about a 2.5 out of 5. I enjoyed the flick, and it really did have it's moments, but in the end it really was just is an average film.

Friday, April 26, 2013

Mechanist Games just announced today that they will be going into an early access Beta on May 10th for City of Steam. This is the news I've been waiting for since I first found out about City of Steam at PAX East. An amazing world of Steam Punk here I come!

Anyone who doesn't remember anything from my previous post on City of Steam. It's a web browser based MMO-RPG, based in a Steam Punk/Clock Works world. I'll post the original interview I had with Gab Laforge of Mechanist Games at the bottom of the post.

Since the closed Beta ended in December for City of Steam, Mechanist Games has been working hard on developing the game for this next phase in the beta. It looks like this is going to be an exclusive "early access" beta, and it's the ramp up to the Open Beta. They plan on starting with three classes (Gunner, Arcanist, Warden), and four races (Heartlanders, Stoigmari, Avens and Ostenians), an
d then as the beta goes on they will eventually add the fourth class (Channeler) and the other seven races. They also are stating on the website that a character wipe is not planned, and that they are going to do everything they can to avoid it, but if something problematic pops up, they might have to.

Anyone who is interested in getting into the Beta, and for more information on City of Steam go to CityOfSteam.com. I'm already signed up and ready to play, now it's time to start the count down till Beta!

Monday, April 22, 2013

While I was at PAX East 2013, I spoke with Christian Baekkelund from Moonshot Games about Third Eye Crime. Third Eye Crime is a Film Noir inspired game, where you play as an art thief named Rothko, who can read minds. It has a fun comic book style to it, and an interesting concept, that keeps you interested. Here my interview with Christian Baekkelund the Lead Designer of Moonshot Games.

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

This is an old review I did a few years back on Cinemaroll.com. I happened to come accross it, and decided to post it here. Some of it might be dated but I like some of the points I make about the flicks. I did some editing to keep it from being completely out dated. Now onto the review.

I picked up the 5 disc unrated collector’s set of the Saw Series. In doing this I decided to do a little Saw Marathon. I have to admit some of my complaints about it would have to stand corrected, but I’ll talk about that in a min. I’ve decided to do a review of these five. I'm approaching this as a little review of each film.

Well the first thing I do want to say about the Saw series is that before I picked up the five movie pack, I had only seen the first two movies (when they were in theaters). Since it has been so long, I should have expected that I could have remembered things wrong, and end up being wrong on a couple complaints I had about it. Okay, well I suppose I should tell you what these complaints were. My biggest complaint I had was that in Saw 2 they completely ignored the whole concept of why they called him Saw in the first place. Well I have to say that I stand corrected on this one. Watching it again, it’s actually one of the first things that they do, I must have not noticed it while in the theater, the first time or something. The other was that the second one just wasn’t original enough to even compare with “Saw”. On this I have to say I may have been a little to critical, but it does suffer from sequel syndrome. In most cases with the first sequel of any movie has this issue, it’s a rare occasion where the sequel is as good or even better than the original. I never really had any complaints about the first Saw film. At the time it was original and new, and I still stand by that.

Saw had an original concept, it kept you questioning things, and the pacing was great. It kept up my enjoyment of the film, and kept my attention. I would have to give the film a 7.5 out of 10.

Saw II suffered from the sequel issue that most sequels suffer from. It’s not original anymore. The story to it wasn’t as good. The only characters you might be able to find any sympathy for are Daniel Matthews (Erik Knudsen), and Jonas (Glenn Plummer). Though personally my favorite character was Eric Matthews (Donnie Wahlberg), even though he screwed up anyway. In the end I give this film a 5 out of 10. It was an average film, at least I didn’t walk out wanting my money back.

Saw III was undeniably better than it’s last predecessor. I really liked how it brought all of them together. That is one thing I like to see in a lot of films, is how some can interconnect. I also liked that they brought back Donnie Wahlberg. One thing I wasn’t happy with was how the first trap scene was done. That scene with the guy in chains. The editing of that wasn’t very good. They had too much repeating of the same exact sound fx, and I believe the continuity wasn’t very good either on it. Other than that I really enjoyed it, I give it a 7 out of 10.

Saw IV was a film that didn’t make sense to do, but it worked. There isn’t much to say about this one, other than that I did like how they put this one together. I also liked how they brought in another person who was helping Jigsaw, it wasn’t perfect in how they did it, but it worked. I give this film a 6.5 out of 10.

Saw V was the last Saw film I’ve seen thus far. This one felt like they were running out of ideas, but it still worked… barely. Don’t get me wrong I did enjoy it, but I saw the ending coming, at this point it’s starting to feel a little repetitive. All in all I give Saw V a 5.5 out of 10.

In total for the 5 Disc UnRated Collector’s Set I give it a 6.5. It gets a bonus half point for commentaries, and some cool special features. Thus kicking up to a 7 or of 10 in total. Yeah I like special features, and commentaries. That it for now catch you guys later.
Well after the first two Saw movies, I didn’t watch any until now. So now I have finally seen all the Saw movies that are on DVD at this time. I’m going to rate them from one to ten. One being a waste of time and money, five being an average movie, and ten being perfect. I will also give a 1 to 10 review on the collector’s set in total.

Monday, April 15, 2013

I finally had a chance to see The Dark Knight Rises. Yeah I know, I'm a little behind on the game. I actually purchased The Dark Knight Trilogy, and I considered watching all of them in one sitting. After thinking about it and realizing I don't have that much time in a day to watch multiple movies that are almost three hours long each, I decided on going right to the one I hadn't seen yet. I watched the first two in theaters, and enjoyed every moment of both of them, the third one now that I've finally watched it, well... I regret not watching it on the big screen. It was packed full of awesome sauce.

Now before seeing the movie, I purposely avoided reading anything on the movie, and told all of my friends not to tell me anything about it. It took a lot to avoid hearing anything about, but I was successful, and I'm able to give my honest opinion without any outside influences.

The Dark KnightRises takes place eight years after The Dark Knight. Batman and Commissioner Gordon have pretty much buried the truth about Harvey Dent, and you can tell it's been eating away at the Commissioner. Batman is retired, basically crippled, and public enemy number one. Bane comes to Gotham City and chaos insues.

Even though I did state that the flick was packed full of awesome sauce, I did have a couple things that took me out of the movie briefly, or at least made me feel like something was off about it. The first and most noticeable thing was Bane's voice. When you have an expectation about a character from your past references of them such as The Batman Animated Series, you can be thrown off by something like this. When you hear his voice you almost expect to see a proper English gentleman on the screen, and definitely not a man who could practically crush a human skull. As the movie went on I was able to adjust to his voice, and move past it (Now it's my favorite impression to do).

The other thing that I noticed was Christian Bale's Batman voice. I'm not saying that it's really changed between the last movie and this one, but for some reason I happened to notice it more this time around to the point it made me think about it. At least it took me out of it when it was trying to yell in the growling voice. Yes I do understand this was also brought up by other people for the previous films. It was something I happen to notice more this time around.

The last thing I noticed that was a relatively big thing, was the partwhere Bane and his crew make their escape from the stock exchange and it goes from day to night really quick. Maybe the chase went on for a long time, but it did seem to be a really quick transition.

Overall even with these things that took me out of the movie briefly The Dark Knight Rises a 5 out of 5. I genuinely enjoyed the flick, and even the acting of some the supporting characters were beyond what I expected. Michael Caine has put so much more depth in the Alfred character with his acting than I've ever seen before in any Batman. The story was great, I liked how they brought it full circle by bringing Ra's Al Ghul's daughter, and the League of Shadows into the mix. Christopher Nolan did it again with Batman, a great movie, great plot, and an all around enjoyable movie. If you haven't seen it, go see it, but make sure you see Batman Begins, and The Dark Knight, before you check out The Dark Knight Rises.

Thursday, April 11, 2013

I finally had a chance to see Wreck-It Ralph. This being a site where we talk movies, and games I thought this would be a perfect movie to review because it hits the best of both worlds.

Wreck-It Ralph is a video game villain from Fix It Felix Jr., who doesn't want to be the villain any more. He wants to be the hero of a game for once. He sets out to fulfill his dream but his quest brings havoc to the arcade he calls home instead.

It's been long enough since the movie came out where I shouldn't worry too much about spoilers, but I'll try to not give too much away anyway for those who have not had a chance to see it yet. To start off Wreck-It Ralph if a fun movie for all to see, and it has something in there for everyone. While watch the flick you notice different references, and cameos of some of our favorite classic arcade, and console characters. There are reference and cameos to Pac-Man, Sonic, and so many others. You actually need to watch the movie a couple times just to catch all of it, and even then you feel like you missed something because of how easy it is to get wrapped up in the movie.

Wreck-It Ralph is one of the few movies that gives video game movies a good name. I have to give it a 5 out of 5. It's a fun movie, with a great story, where you care about the characters, and you can't help get excited every time you see a new cameo, or reference to one of the classics. If you like video games, you'll probably like this movie.

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Now either you lead, do machines, your rude or a party dude, ninja turtles for kids left us being able to relate to if not all then at least one turtle. They coined catch phrases that became normal conversation and a huge part of pop culture. A large and I do mean large toy line, video games, board games, clothing, bedding, and anything else they can throw labels on they did. It all started from a comic in 1984 which the creators thought yep this is going to tank! Nine issues, and a cartoon show, and almost 30 years later the turtles are still in pop culture, but this time in the eyes of fan boys it's not going well.

After three live action films almost 20 years ago Hollywood has decided it is time the lean mean green fighting machine returns. To live action form on the big screen. This time Michael bay is producing the film after his company platinum dunes bought the rights. This is about the time the fan boys go crazy, because I guess Michael bay messed up transformers? I don't see it that way, I see a film maker that took a 30 minute cartoon from the 80s and turned it into a fun summer blockbuster, three of them. Do they have great plots? Nope, great acting, no not really, but lets not forget its a movie based on a cartoon that sole basses was to sell toys, so they were just 30 minute toy commercials. He made transformers not citizen prime or Optimus's list. Giant transforming robots come to earth and fight the end, they fact we got any plot was a bonus!

Now he is producing ninja turtles, and I say ninja turtles because they dropped the teenage mutant part. They are no longer mutants but spawned by a alien slim left over by a alien race from dimension X, wait so dimension X is in this film? Finally Krang in a live action turtles film? About time, see fan boys saw the whole not mutant part and missed the Krang thing and dimension X. I'm 30 I have seen that ninja turtle storyline over and over again they've done that, so why tell it again with a bigger budget? I look at turtles like batman, Tim Burton did a darker batman after seeing the bright campy Adam west one, Burton re-did batman for a new generation then batman returns was a little more dark and a little more campy, Tim Burton re-did batman and story a little changes to his character he killed people it was our first look at "The Dark Knight" then Schulmocker gave us two bad films, bright, campy, again redoing batmans character. Then batman went away for away till Nolan gave us a real batman with his three.

See this is what is going on with turtles, had the campy cartoon then the darker live action film, then a less dark campy live action film then turtles three which is one of the worst films of the 90s. Then the turtles kinda just went away until now we are getting a new real version of them, how can anyone just assume they are going to be bad? It is already better than turtles three or the live action show in 1997 called the next mutation.

Ninja turtles is part and will always be part of our youth but as adults we have to base the new take on them as adults and not what we remember from our childhood! You can't jump the gun, have to wait and see I for one can't wait! And yes I'm a huge TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES fan boy but also I've grown up and have the ability to still watch and read the original source material if I don't like the new movie can't no one "rape" my childhood. Except George Lucas!

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Game addiction is something that happen when you come across a select few titles. This is the second game I came across at PAX East that I can't seem to stop playing. Containment: The Zombie Puzzler is a game that crosses puzzle games, and one of my favorite things in the world... ZOMBIES! I was able to speak with Mat Staltman from Bootsnake game about Containment, and a new game that they are working on Bootsnake Tactics, a hybrid of a sandbox RPG with tactical turn based combat. Here's the video below.

Honestly I can't stop playing ContainmentZombi Puzzler. It's a fun game and it's definitely worth the purchase. If you want to know about Bootsnake Games, Containment: The Zombie Puzzler, or Bootsnake Tactics, check out www.bootsnakegames.com.

Monday, April 1, 2013

City of Steam is a game being developed by Mechanist Games. It's a game based in a Steam Punk world. For those of you who don't know what steam punk is; Steam Punk is a Science Fiction sub-genre, which features steam powered technology, basically a retro-futuristic world. The best examples of this can be found in the works of Jules Verne, and H.G Wells. The company doesn't push too much about saying that it's a steam punk game, but if you like steam punk you'll probably like City of Steam.

I was able to speak with Gabriel Laforge of Mechanist Games about City of Steam. It is a browser based, FREE to Play, role playing game. It can be played as a normal RPG, or as a MMORGP. I'm actually pretty excited about this game, I'm both a steam punk, and rpg fan. Gabriel was nice enough to take us through some of the steps of the beginning of the game, and talk about it with us on camera. Here's the video below.

Overall City of Steam looks like it's going to be a pretty fun game. I really like the fact that it's browser based, so you don't need a super computer to play it. While looking more into the game I discovered that depending on the type of character you play, and how you play your character, your story line becomes more unique to you. I'm excited about this game, and it's going to be one of my more anticipated games I'll be waiting for the come out.